all you said you wanted was to do 2 phases a day (from the rules: The goal of rules from 2 to 5 is to have a quasi-live game. What's hoped is to play at least 2 phases a day everyday. However, in order to handle weekends, Thanksgiving etc, the phase lenght is set to 37 hours. Gentlemen, please don't abuse this.). If you finalize twice a day, you keep the contract

"Yes, I can.
You have a serious issue with Rule 2. IDK what is not clear to you (feel free to ask), but you basically logged in the game and then logged out without finalizing. You violated Rule 3 once, also.

___________________
"over weekends... a) asked my friend Frank to enter moves ".
All violations are actually on weekends. FYI they were on 2 - 9 - 15 - 16 of September. But obviousely I can't care and I won't investigate on this: it's a story between you and him. You are responsible.
BTW, if "Frank" has an account on VDip, there could be a violation of rule 8, since it wasn't announced. You didn't broke the silence, but maybe you were the only one who had a good reason to do it! :)"


My response, which is now public since this is a public issue:

As I said to Guaroz, I cannot see thsi map from my phone. I travel most every weekend and as such I would log in to Vdip to see if the game has progressed. When it has I e-mail my friend Frank to please enter the mvoes for me. He is able to when he is able to by his schedule. Sure, I am responsible for fulfilling the contract, however as Fortress pointed out there was leeway given for weekends. I had 4 times I broke the contract - would it have been better if I did not log in at all, did not message frank and enter mvoes when I did log in on the Sunday? This would have amde the game slower but I would have abided by the contract.

I appreciate Guaroz taking the time to explain to me. I will respectfully decline to play any more of this series of games.

To all: I believe strongly in the ideas behind the contract - there should be no delays in gunboat games, everyone should enter and finalzie moves as soon as possible. I play every gunboat game under this philosphy and this will not change. I invite any and all players to please play in gunboat games with me, especially if they operate under this philosophy.

I will now only play anon games, maybe I will start some with a password. guaroz - as much as I respect you as a player, you will not be welcome. Your attitude at the end of this match is extremely disapointing. I have lost a significant amount of respect for you as a person. Good luck with everything else you do in life.

Is there some punitive reason that seven players are not being asked to play in the next version? If so, then I steadfastly protest you putting my name in that category. I complied with every single item on the list. I guess it's your event to invite who you want to participate.

Ruffhaus - it would please me very much to play many future games with you, without Guaroz.

Why don't we just start our own contract gunboat? No rule that says we can't. If Guarox is going to play evil dictator, we should

I have to admit that I broke the contract several times - I was on my summer hols when this started and I had a lot of time. About half way through my college started so I couldn't go on in the day, and my parents put my Internet on a timer so I could only go on for a brief period in the morning before I had to leave. Therefore, I generally logged on in the mornings, but I didn't always have the time to enter orders.

I wouldn't be signing up to the next CB in any case (for the reasons above) but I admit breaking the contract and I apologise

I'm done with Guaroz as well. I play up to eight games here at a time. I made this game my priority every single time I logged in to VDiplomacy. If the Contract game was up for my orders I gave them every single time. Yet somewhow I also "have a serious issue with rule #....." What ever. Serious issue? That's crock. I complied with the contract completely. Sometimes I would log in and find the game not ready for orders, and turn to my other games needing orders. One of my games (the one I supposedly violated the contract for) has 75 orders to write each turn. This takes a LOT of time to complete, sometimes up to three hours during which time I do a lot of back and forth, and have on occasion mistakenly closed out either my orders page or my map page. There have been times that I've completed this game's orders and found the contract game's orders suddenly up, upon which I immediately submitted them. Maybe there's some mysterious periodic logging in to the site going on while I'm in the middle of another game. But whatever. If this is the reason I'm to be excluded, then good riddance.

Guaroz is simply wrong here as he is about a great number of things, but he wants to play dictator of VDiplomacy. Well, go be little Hitler, dude. I'm done putting up with your behavior. Don't bother inviting me to anymore of your projects.

I'll write up an EoG soon.
@Ruff - I don't think I could've got the solo in any case - you saw how fast France stalemated me at the start, and he could've done so at the end too. I was sorely tempted to attack him anyway when he started NMRing but to do so would've broken our defence against China - his holding units played a key part in that.

and thinks it is somehow wrong I risked being 8TH TO FINALIZE in a 15 player game. I don't live on here Gauroz

@fortress - I am not interested in anymore "contracts" at all.

I am interested in playing with other players who are committed to finalizing as soon as they can, interested in playing with players who are looking for interesting, fun and well-played gunboat games. When i start a new game I will invite those who I believe have the same ideals as me.

Why has Guaroz not even been thanked for setting this up yet? Maybe he is being a bit strict with who he invites back, but that's his decision - it was his game. I found this game very fun to play, and I'm sure all of you did too.
Thanks, Guaroz, for setting up and arranging this game!

And feel free to invite my, Jimbozig. I will still be joining these Contract Ones, but I will protest against Gauroz

thanks for setting it up Guaroz, but I am going to countiue to protest against your decisions and judgements.

@ Jimbo. "would it have been better if I did not log in at all"
Yes. 37h phase lets you handle situations in which you can't log in, like weekends in places where you haven't got an internet connection. If you have it and you log in the game, you are supposed to put in your orders and finalize.
But it's not only a matter of time, although this is very relevant and enough already.
There's another reason why rule 2 is so serious. Since other players finalize their orders as they log in, whoever else logs in, doesn't finalize, and logs out, could use this time to study the new map and make a more accurate plan than everyone else. He gets an unfair advantage. I'm NOT accusing you of this. Nobody knows what a player does right after he violated rule 2. As far as I know you, I'm rather sure you didn't take advantage of it - you're not that kind.
But that's one more reason why this matter is so serious and it didn't look fair to me to save you just because you're a friend of mine and you're a good guy.

@RUFF. "Is there some punitive reason that seven players are not being asked to play in the next version? " Do you see another way to enforce rules? What did you think "This is an invitational game" meant?
I told you I'm avaliable for explanation. We could use the time you're out for this... looks like you need explanations about the rule you broke so many times, because you say you didn't even noticed you were breaking it. If you see skipping one game only as an enormous punishment, I'm sorry.

@FD. "Why don't we just start our own contract gunboat? No rule that says we can't. If Guarox is going to play evil dictator, we should"
Sure! I haven't got the copyright... good luck with your version.
Let me just say that I spent my time monitoring CG-I and CG-II with the purpose of assure that good players like you could have a good next contract. I am the one who's getting all the critics and flames to let you have a better game next time.
Perhaps my misfortune was to have a good CG-I. There have been only 8 violations of contract, averagely 0.88 per player. "Although there has been some minor issues with some rules, I have to say that, on the whole, things went out exactly how I hoped." I said.
Instead, in this CG-II, there have been 101 violations, 6.73 per player. What should I say now? "You all did well"?
Perhaps if in CG-I we had just 1 player stopped for a turn, now everyone would have more clear what happened in this game.
I'm sorry you don't get what my job is for. It costed me time.
(I'm going to explain the "8th" thing in a PM. It has nothing to do with finalizing or what you're saying)

@Captain. Sorry I had to be harsh with you. Thanks for understanding and for the fairness in which you took my inevitable decision.

@ RUFF again "I complied with the contract completely. Sometimes I would log in and find the game not ready for orders, and turn to my other games needing orders."
It's funny how you say you complied the contract and the period right after you say you never complied it.
If you didn't like rule 5, why did you join?
12. Once you read this whole post, all rules are clear, you accept them, you promise to observe them...
Why did you join if you knew you would have ignored rule 5?
Just to have trouble with me? I should have know it. My fault I accepted your request.

This is a load of bullshit. I understand what you are striving for but you are going about it in a piss-poor way, ruining relationships all the while.

"But that's one more reason why this matter is so serious and it didn't look fair to me to save you just because you're a friend of mine and you're a good guy."

If you consider me a "friend" than give me the respect a friend deserves. Don't come on here and give me some bullshit line about how you refuse to have me in yournext game without even a hint of an explanation let alone even a request to have me explain.

You reject my explanation anyway as me intentionally skirting around the contract. The contract appears more important to you than a fair and fun game, as as such, I stand by what i wrote before and I will not intentionally be a part of any of your future olidip ventures.

When you learn how to treat people with respect then things may change, until then, congratulations on blowing a "friendship" by being a purposeful douchebag.

I understand where you are coming from Guaroz, but I think you are going overboard

Jimbo, I'm not sure why is happening this. And It's not clear to me how I lack respect for you. If I offended you in some way, I'm sorry and I apologize.
You have been treated like any other player: you broke the rules, you skip next game, you asked why, I told you which rule you repeatedly broke.
Now you say that I should have explained why first. Yes, maybe. But I thought that most of the 7 players knew what rules they broke. Looks like I was wrong, they say they don't know. Mm. See, I expected more people like Captainmeme, who accepted the thing and even apologized for breaking the contract, and much less people like you, who needed explanations and even after explanation are still complaining.
If there had been only 1 player stopped, maybe I'd have typed to him a longer PM with some more explanation. But it's not my fault if there have been 7 players all in one time! So... sorry! I couldn't type 7 long PMs for each player. What have I done so bad to deserve 7 players needing to be stopped all in the same game? My day has only 24 hours as any other man. Who needs explanations please ask: I'm avaliable in the next days. It's not my fault if so many people didn't read the rules carefully or didn't ask for explanations BEFORE the game started. I encouraged people to ask, before the game. Because "I didn't know" can't be a valid excuse. And because I didn't want those discussions at the end.
Now. Back to you. I rejected your (not requested) explanation. But why you say "as me intentionally skirting around the contract"??? What??? I told you I understood it was probably (I gave you the exact days but you didn't confirm) this "Frank". Just this is not a valid excuse. Actually, there are no valid excuses. Either you play by the contract or you don't. It's not supposed to be a shame. Perhaps some player realizes that Contract doesn't fit his taste, or his RL, only after given it a try. It's not a shame! Why are you taking it so bad??? You gave your password to a person who didn't get the rules. "Frank", you called him. What's the problem? Just don't make the same mistake again! Why are you attacking me this way?

http://www.vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=10192

Yeah, good idea Raro. No rules, no need to handle rulebreakers. Why should we play SRGs?

If someone else "unaware" of what he did needs explanations, I'm still avaliable.

Why are you guys bitching? I don't understand. You broke the rules, so you get punished big deal

My breaking the rules, as it has been called, was my way of speeding up play. By Guaroz's admission, had I not logged in and waited until Sunday I would have not broken the rules but the game would have probably been slower. I did whatever I could, whenever I could, to help the game achieve it's designed purpose. Now, at the end, without even being asked why or told how I broke the rules I am being called out, told I was wrong, etc. Guaroz has shown that he cares more about being in control than he does about the game or the people in it. I am done arguing, I have said my point. I have no need to be subjected to this type of bullshit. I am capable of setting up my own games, I will do this. The only biggest travesty in all this is that someone who I did consider a friend has proven that he deserved no such recognition or respect. A pity.

Wow - a lot of angst over this one. I played in both of these contract games and enjoyed the notion that, while flexible in time, if folks had outside commitments it still gave them leeway to play and not violate the contract. I was traveling a couple times during this game and was thankful for the long phase times so I was not penalized but was happy to move things along when home.

Having said that, I am one of the damnable seven who is not invited for the next game. I suppose it is fair as there were times I logged in but did not submit orders. Perhaps the issue here is the classic "spirit of the law" vs. "letter of the law". If I intended to submit orders but something came up (dropped phone connection, kid crying, angry spouse) of course such things take precedence and I log out. As the game progressed, it took a while to log in, survey the lay of the land, work a strategy and then enter it. Yes, I know I am whining about having sooooo many units to work with but the reality is that it does take a certain amount of time to work these things out (at least it does for me). Right at the end, I knew that we were headed for a draw, logged in, submitted my build order, and, as the phase turned, voted for the draw without submitting orders. As it turned out, the draw did happen so there was no harm done. France was busy NMRing anyway so I don't think I was slowing anyone down.

Regardless I will admit that yup, I violated the contract. I also admit that Guaroz has the right to invite whoever he wants to any game he sets up. I do wish that instead of the admonishing letter, I received one instead asking me to explain any transgressions, but again that is the prerogative of the host.

All this stuff unfortunately seems to be distracting from the game itself which I thought was quite enjoyable, not just because I was part of the draw. I'll file an EOG later, but I did want to extend a thanks and gg to my competitors. This is the kind of game I look for when considering what to sign up for on vDip. Cheers, fellas.

@ Jimbo.
"My breaking the rules, as it has been called, was my way of speeding up play. By Guaroz's admission, had I not logged in and waited until Sunday I would have not broken the rules but the game would have probably been slower."
- I don't see how saving orders and let them go saved until the deadline could speed up play. Once you did even that (16/09/2012 Fall 911 Builds ). But this is not the point.
The contract works perfectly (CG-I proved it) if players just follow the rules, they're not asked to interpret them, because they could misinterpret. I believe your intentions were good, but logging in the game, not putting any order (or putting them in unreadyed) and logging out the site, DOESN'T speed up the game.
You don't have an internet connection for the weekend? Alas...ok... Rule6 is there for it. It is there to explain why this is not a 12h/phase game (so it's possible to go even faster! It's "at least" 2 phases a day. It's as fast as possible without NMRs).
But if you log in, then you have to put your orders in and finalize them. Rule6 doesn't say anywhere that Rule2 can be ignored on weekends.

"I did whatever I could, whenever I could, to help the game achieve it's designed purpose."
- Ok, I trust you. But the outcome was not what you expected, sorry.

"Now, at the end, without even being asked why or told how I broke the rules I am being called out, told I was wrong, etc."
- I asked nobody of the 7 "why". Excuses are irrelevant because anyone could provide good-looking ones. And even if I was convinced that his intentions were good, or that he did all he could to avoid breaking rules, or even if he just had some unlucky RL issue that eg made him NMR, it would be unfair by me treat him differently from the others. So no reason for me to ask someone why he broke a rule all those times.
About "told how I broke the Rules", yes, that could have been a nice thing by me. But I didn't, sorry. I already explained why: it would have taken days for me to give explanations to 7 players, being not even sure if all those explanations were needed since players are supposed to know the contract and to know what they're doing. But I replied asap to each one who asked me, you incuded.
"Told how a player broke the Rules" without waiting for being asked sounds good: I'll do it for sure next time, if there are only 1 or 2 players to be informed.
This time was not possible, sorry. Sorry all.

"Guaroz has shown that he cares more about being in control than he does about the game or the people in it."
- Sorry, I don't agree. And what about you? What do you think you're showing you care?
Please think about it, 2 minutes.

"I have no need to be subjected to this type of bullshit."
- I knew it could have been possible that, among 7 players stopped, someone could get insulting. While I figured out it could be Ruff because he hates me, I never figured out it could be you. This makes me sad.

"The only biggest travesty in all this is that someone who I did consider a friend has proven that he deserved no such recognition or respect. A pity."
- I agree, sadly. It's a pity you hadn't got any sort of doubt. You didn't ask for any further explanation, apparently making no effort to get my point of view. You decided I was absolutely wrong, copy-pasted my PM (in which btw I encouraged you to ask me more) on the forum and started attacking me. No doubts at all. You were sure that I was wrong and you were right and therefore I deserved a public punishment. It was not a big luck that you did consider me a friend, apparently! :)

"I am done arguing, I have said my point."
- My hope is that you may be willing to change your mind a bit, just a little enough to restart this discussion from where you like. If you care, then I'm avaliable. It would be a joy.

I did not break any of your damn rules. Nor did I admit that I did not comply with Rule #5. I did not break rule #5 EVER. I did not break any rule EVER. Take your contract and shove it up your ass.

Yes, I do hate you, Guaroz. I hate you because you're an egotistical little dictator who thinks he know ten times as much about this game as you do. You're addicted to rules, which are written so porly that nobody can understand them. Even so I did not break the rule, not even your precious Rule #5. I completed my CG2 orders first everytime I logged on. You're addicted to power and being in control of everything. No one wants that even if you were right about everything, whcih you most certainly are not.

Has it ever occured to you in your nazi-like spying that sometimes people's computers act up and websites refresh while they are using them, which results in a login to the sit even though it doesn't return you to the start page? Or that maybe in the process of filling out 65+ orders for another game, one cannot stop to check every five minutes if the CG game has processed? Probably not, because it doesn't suit your control freak agenda.

It's absurd that you'd kick me and Jimbo, and whomever else you did short of Scuba, who's NMRs and lengthy delays were the only infringements that affected the game. Scuba is suffering in all of his games lately, so something must be up with him, and I hope that it's nothing serious.

To everyone else, even Guaroz the player, it was a fun game in spite of everything. Jimbo hit the nail on the head by saying that he wants to play in games where players can be on their honor to press ready when they are done to move the game along.

I never once pressed save other than when I was in the middle of entering. I can guarantee that my sitter did the same. Therefore, now you are simply lying to me and to everyone, blatantly and unecessarily. You misunderstand everything I write, probably intentionally, but I said I logged in to see IF the game needed orders. I was on the phone, could NOT enter any. TEXTED frank immediately and asked him to do it whenever possible for him. He then entered and finalized. You are saying to me that me ignoring the game on the weekends and checking when I get back, with a few hours left, and finalizing them would have been better because it kept the contract.

Well then, your contract is fucked and it does not acheive its designed purpose of a fast-paced game. You would rather I slow downt he game then check from my phone and implement this contingency plan.

You are fucked, man, really fucked. I never expected this from you but here it is, the biggest asshole on the internet.

"What do you think you're showing you care? "

Yes, that's exactly what I am doing.

It is possible that rules are written poorly, I'm not motherlanguage. But since basically nobody asked for clarifications before each of the 2 CGs started, I assumed they were written well enough. That would be confirmed that in the whole CG-I there were only 8 infractions: they can be understood.
If you don't like rules it's fair enough, just please don't play SRGs. Calling "dictator" someone only because he caught you breaking the rules looks rather childish.

Each time I log in the CG game, I open profiles of those who haven't finalized their orders yet (those with the 2 red exclamation marks), check online status and take note of possible infractions (this was an easy job in CG-I). Ruff:

04/09/2012 11:50 AM Fall 907 Diplomacy Rule 5. Phase begun at 9:37 AM. He logged out the site at 10:00 AM without logging in the game.

08/09/2012 09:13 AM Spring 909 Diplomacy Rule 5. Phase begun at 2:15 AM. He logged out the site at 3:40 AM without logging in the game.

08/09/2012 05:44 PM Spring 909 Diplomacy Rule 5. Phase begun at 2:15 AM. He logged in again this phase and logged out the site at 4:30 PM without logging in the game (aggravating: he was the last one left to finalize).

12/09/2012 2:05 AM Fall 910 Builds Rule 5 again. He logged in the site and logged in "War of the World" before CG-II.

14/09/2012 5:38 PM Fall 911 Diplomacy Rule 5. Phase begun at 3:21 PM. He logged out the site at 5:45 PM without logging in the game.

17/09/2012 10:33 PM Spring 912 Retreats Rule 5. Phase begun at 2:32 PM. He logged out the site at 10:15 PM without logging in the game.

19/09/2012 9:08 AM Spring 912 Retreats Rule 5. Phase begun at 5:52 AM. He logged out the site at 7:30 AM without logging in the game.

20/09/2012 9:10 AM Spring 913 Retreats Rule 5. Phase begun at 2:04 AM. He logged out the site at 6:30 AM without logging in the game.

23/09/2012 9:35 AM Fall 913 Builds Rule 5. Phase begun at 2:33 AM. He logged out the site at 7:10 AM without logging in the game.

24/09/2012 8:34 AM Spring 914 Diplomacy Rule 5. Phase begun at 7:37 AM. He logged out the site at 8:00 AM without logging in the game.

I'd stay here asking you why you played perfectly until Spring 907, it makes me really curious, but with this paper shoved up my ass I need to run to the WC room, sorry.

Do you ever leave the website open Guaroz when you are not at your computer? I do that all the time. I would not be surprised if sometimes I am online and it takes me 4 hours to physically check the page. When I am at work, for instance.

This above proves in no way shape or formt hat Ruff broke the rules. Grow up, man.

I just read through the whole three page thread at lunch. I was not in the game but from an outsider's perspective I have some comments.
- The rules in the first post seemed pretty strict. Personally, I would not have joined the game because I often check the site from my phone while waiting in line at a store or in a meeting or whatever. During these times, it's just to think about the game but I wouldn't want to enter moves or anything. Obviously, my time stamp would be updated so I'd be a rule breaker even if I made multiple moves a day.
- While the rules were laid out and everyone agreed to abide by them, it seems like people did their best (aside from the one guy) to move the game along as quickly as they could, not anticipating that any variance from the exact rule would be logged and cause for dismissal or penalty.
- Guaroz is computer-like strict about enforcement and rule interpretation and it doesn't mesh as well with the human side of things. I don't think he means anything personal by it; it's just the way he is.
- It's probably better if any future games leave a little leeway so that feelings and friendships don't get hurt.